The Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies at the University of Rhode Island (URI) congratulates Ruth Kathryn Henry for winning the International Nonviolence Trainer’s Award on February 1, 2023. She is honored for teaching nonviolence and peace to diverse students and the community through training, music, and fine arts for more than a decade in the US and abroad.
Born and raised in Watertown, Massachusetts, Henry has been passionate about social justice, equity, art, and nonviolence. She says she first learned about Kingian Nonviolence while reading KRS-One’s book Gospel of Hip Hop in Colombia. The well-known American musician and activist KRS-One, whose official name is Lawrence “Kris” Parker, said the Gospel of Hip Hop is about how humans can remain in a society where people cannot live without technology. As Hip Hop reminds people about their humanity, Henry cherishes Hip Hop as a creative tool for social connection, change, and development.
Ruth Kathryn Henry holds the highest Level 3 certification in Kingian Nonviolence and Conflict Reconciliation from the URI Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies. She earned her Master’s in Fine Arts from Massachusetts College in 2019 and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art and Literature from Hampshire College at Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1999. She also studied Drawing and Painting at the Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia, and the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Cartagena, Colombia. Henry completed her Level 2 Advanced Nonviolence Leadership Training in 2011 while caring for her newborn baby in her lap during the weeklong intensive institute and the Level 1 Kingian Nonviolence Training of Trainers in 2010.
She has been deeply committed to expanding opportunities for Kingian Nonviolence training in Colombia after it suffered decades of violence and social upheaval. She raised funds for a prominent Colombian DJ, Deejay I&I Riddim, to get the Level 1 Kingian Nonviolence Training of Trainers certification from the URI Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies to co-train and offer nonviolence workshops in Colombia. Just between 2011 and 2012, Henry and her co-trainer successfully trained over 150 Hip Hop leaders across five Colombian cities: Bogota, Barranquilla, Cali, Cartagena, and Medellin. Twenty-five of these leaders then joined together for a two-week Trainer’s Institute in Cartagena, after which they each found unique ways to continue multiplying what they had learned with their home communities. During this institute, fourteen Hip Hop artists composed and released a bilingual song on the principles of Kingian Nonviolence. All those musicians created and continue to create healing ripple effects throughout Colombia.
As Henry moved back from Colombia to the US in 2013, she released her album titled Ripple under her emcee name, Oasys. She continues using her original music as an intimate and powerful calling to peoples’ hearts, evoking nonviolence, peace, and harmony. In 2014, Henry started teaching Spanish at Watertown Middle School. She used the opportunity to spark her students’ interest in nonviolence through mural projects to honor MLK Day. Over the years, she worked with a coalition across her local school department, police department, city council, and grassroots organizations to continue building up a Kingian Nonviolence movement in Watertown. Henry and her team created two new elective courses, one a Trainer Certification course and another a Kingian Nonviolence in Action course, both at the middle school. Students from these courses trained younger students, peers, families, teachers, and others through elementary lessons, community courses, and professional development opportunities. The goal was to educate students to uproot racism, bullying, discrimination, and violence from society while cultivating equality, friendship, harmony, and peace.
Despite various challenges as she works to put her training into action in her community, Henry remains determined to promote nonviolence and peace via online, in-person, music, and exemplary arts projects. For the last couple of years, Henry has offered virtual nonviolence training for a Bolivian activist organization and the Detroit Safety Team, as well as in-person training for the Public Safety Department of Brandeis University and ongoing community courses in Watertown. She is a Teaching-Artist-in- Residence at both the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute and at I Learn America, guiding many youths in exploring and expressing their lived experiences, stories, and arts. The goal is to help build stronger, healthier, and more peaceful communities.
With her incredible talent in fine arts, Henry has created and exhibited numerous murals and installations in the US and abroad, calling for peace, equality, and social development. For example, the Welcome mural in 2022 at Broward County Public Schools International Welcome Center in Florida, the Love Like a River mural in 2021 at Arsenal Yards in Watertown, MA; the To Overcome the Old Prejudices mural in 2020 in Bangalore, India; the Rise to Change mural in 2017 at O’Day Park, Boston, MA; Visions of Elevation installation in 2004 at Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA; and the Art Without Walls installation in 2002 at Northeastern University in Boston, MA.
Recently in 2022, Henry exhibited her solo art show titled “When We Are Silent.” She says it is a collection of her new works created over a year of speaking up and another year of keeping silent. Henry wrote and illustrated her book “Can We Rise? A Journey of Questions Towards Personal + Collective Transformation.” Her book invites people to rise toward individual and social transformation, embracing difficult moments as opportunities for growth. An illustrated coloring page after each question allows readers to engage with creative and mindful expression.
Henry has been recognized with multiple awards, including the Community Spirit Award in 2017, Unity Breakfast Award in 2017, and a Fulbright Grant to study and create art in Colombia in 2002. She also spends some of her time volunteering for communities. For example, Henry is a founding member of the Sirenx Crew, a Boston-based female-identifying group dedicated to the transformative power of art in community spaces. She founded and co-directed the La Lengua de mi Barrio for many years, a Hip Hop exchange program between Colombia and the US, to connect youth activists through music. She has served as the Co-President of the Partners of the Americas Massachusetts chapter to coordinate educational and cultural exchanges across the Americas.
We admire Ruth Kathryn Henry for being such a warm, wise, and wonderful person. Many students, youth, and community members from diverse demographic and geographic backgrounds adore her. Again, we thank Henry for practicing and teaching nonviolence and peace through music, arts, and workshops. We congratulate her for winning this International Nonviolence Trainer’s Award. To learn more or support her projects, you may visit her website: www.ruthkhenry.com or follow her on Instagram at @ruthkathryn. She is also available for communication at oasishiphop@gmail.com.